


The War Effort

by sheldrake



Category: Political RPF - UK 21st c.
Genre: F/F, Politics, Satire, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-24
Updated: 2003-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:37:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheldrake/pseuds/sheldrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why Clare didn't resign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The War Effort

**Author's Note:**

> My small contribution to a collaborative improv written with badgermonkey, in March 2003.

Clare settles back into the sofa cushions, tries to make herself comfortable. The Downing Street flat is a sealed-off bubble of peace and quiet; the world outside seems very far away.

Cherie sits a little too close, pours the tea. Her knees and ankles are pushed neatly together, bent sideways against the sofa with an elegance that is learned rather than innate. She's wearing that perfume. Cherie's perfume. Clare thinks, other people must wear that perfume, but still it's always Cherie's. Sometimes she will smell it, just walking from one place to another, thinking about work, about what has to be done next. The smell lingers in the dark, heavy halls of Westminster, in the green leather and polished wood and old, trodden stone of the Commons.

Cherie reaches forward, places the cup in front of her, brushes an escaped strand of hair out of Clare's face. Her hand is cold.

"Clare, you know it's all for the best, don't you?" She smiles, and it is gentle, almost shy. She runs an icy finger along Clare's hairline. "Really. We only want what's best." Her eyes are deep, dark wells. They say, 'we care', and Clare believes it. But she wonders about what.

 

***

 

When Clare looks in the mirror she sees nothing she particularly likes. To her right the shower gushes hot against the curtain, and steam begins to fill the bathroom. From the bedroom, the sound of the Today Programme; John Humphrys quizzing Robin Cook. Robin's coming out of it well, as she knew he would. That smug bastard, always doing the right thing. Always right. She can see him already, or rather feel him -- his self-righteous presence there in the back benches.

  


  


She finishes cleaning her teeth and steps into the shower. People laugh at her behind their hands, she knows it. They say she has no credibility left now. But she doesn't care about that. She's been in this game long enough to know that they can't hurt her. A figure of fun can still go far, and so can a bird on a string. Cherie has promised her. Cherie has promised Clare a lot of things, with her wide smile, and her gentle voice, and her cold, cold hands. The shower is good and hot on Clare's skin this morning, but it never really takes away that cold. Faintly, under the falling water, she hears the distorted, broken up sound of a BBC correspondent in Baghdad. He says bombs, fireballs, casualties, all the usual.

  


  


Down in the icy pit of her stomach, Clare feels sick.


End file.
